Posts in category Weather

I was 19 when Hurricane Katrina hit. It was one of the first days of class my sophomore year at Western Connecticut. I can remember looking at radar images and models leading up to landfall and being utterly amazed and anxious at where the landfall would be.

Hurricane Katrina

Katrina was a strong category 3 storm when it made landfall on Aug 29, 2005 in Louisiana. Days prior, Katrina broke the record for strongest hurricane ever record with a 902mb central pressure (later broken by Hurricane Rita) and 175mph sustained winds.

Katrina made one more landfall before approaching the Mississippi/Louisiana boarder. It is here that the most devastating damage was done in Mississippi. Complete towns washed off the map; only leaving concrete slabs and bricks where houses and stairs used to be.

Of course, in the preceding days, the plight of New Orleans dominated news coverage. Mississippi had been pushed on the backburner, though suffer the worst that Katrina had to offer.

Through the Newman Center at Western Connecticut State University, I had the opportunity to travel to Mississippi on the Journey of Hope six months after Katrina hit to help the Biloxi area rebuild. I can’t begin to describe the damage.

There aren’t too many events that shape ones’ life, but Katrina did that for me. I wasn’t directly affected by the disaster but I was affected, in a positive way, with those who I helped.

I still keep in touch with a few of the people I helped that week (and during two later trips). Billy Ray Dedeaux is one of my good friends I talk to on facebook. I hope to make a trip soon to visit everyone.

Billy Ray Dedeaux and Me

One of the lessons I learned from these experiences is not to be so concerned with the material goods in my life. Every person I spoke to was just happy to be alive and wasn’t worried about the car they lost or the clothes that got ruined. They had each other and that’s all that mattered.

Eight years after Katrina, I know I’m a better person for having met the amazing people of Mississippi. Sometimes there is good out of a disaster.

Side note: I went to Union Beach, NJ after Hurricane Sandy devastated the town. I saw the same tired people two weeks the storm left, running on only coffee and hope. I encourage you all, if you have the ability to help out, it will change your life.

As a meteorologist, one of my dreams is to see a tornado. A big huge tornado. A big huge tornado that spins up in the middle of a field and doesn’t do any damage or cause any injuries.

That’s the catch-22 of storm chasing. You want to see tornadoes, but in seeing them, understand that sometimes people are injured.

On my first and only storm chasing trip last spring, Ari Sarsalari, Jennifer Watson, Kim Ast and I trekked over 4,500 miles through 16 states and 8 state capitals! From 12pm ET Wed 9 May to 11pm CT Fri 11 May (60 total hours), we were in the car of 47 hours. Part of this time period was the trip we made overnight from Wilmington, NC to Corpus Christi, TX

While we didn’t see a tornado, we had a lot of fun. Our live stream made The Weather Channel and KHOU-TV for two hours!

The past few days I’ve been in Birmingham at the National Weather Association’s 2011 conference. It’s really been a great trip. This conference is basically a Who’s Who of Meteorologist across the TV world. I’ve been told that this conference set a record for attendees around 650; 150 of them being broadcast meteorologists (also a record).

In my job at WeatherBug, I’ve been blessed to work with people I once dreamed of becoming. On this trip, I’ve met around ten TV meteorologists who I work with daily, yet never have met face-to-face. In addition, I got to hang out with many others I’ve trained in the past two years. Even non-WeatherBug partners were great to meet… I’m talking to you Brad Panovich, Amy Sweezey, and James Spann and the countless others who are too numerous to list.

I even had the chance to meet one of my weather role-models, Jim Cantore. I introduced myself as Jacob from WeatherBugMedia (on Twitter). He responded that he loved what I did with my tweets and to keep up the good work. That meant the world to me. We got the chance to chat for awhile about the business, about storm chasing (“it’s a blast, isn’t it?”), and weather in general. I saw him a couple other times during the conference, and each time he remembered my name.

Jim Cantore. Just two bald guys having a good time.

NWAS 2011 was a great experience. I really hope I’m able to go to more of these in the future.